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MONTREAL — The only people who aren’t surprised that Hochelaga-Maisonneuve is on the way up are the ones who live there. They’ve been watching it happen for more than five years.

It’s easy to understand why it’s attracting such an eccentric mix of youth, art and, to some degree, money. The older houses — often rows of duplexes or triplexes — were built between 1880 and 1920, just like many of those in Outremont or the Plateau. They’re almost identical in style, and some residents claim they’re even sturdier in structure (I noticed fewer lopsided floors), but they don’t cost nearly as much.

Valerie Picard, a sales co-ordinator at Quebecor, pays $575 per month for her 3½ apartment near Ontario St., and it even includes a parking spot. A one-bedroom flat with similar dimensions in the Plateau, minus parking, can range between $795 and $1,000, as Craigslist shows.

Before settling here a year ago, Picard had reservations.

“When I came to Montreal 11 years ago,” says the Asbestos native, “(Hochelaga-Maisonneuve) was to be avoided. So before I moved, I asked around and people gave me positive feedback, saying it was changing a lot.”

Once a thriving industrial municipality, Hochelaga-Maisonneuve plunged into poverty when most of its factories closed down over the period of about 60 years. By the 1980s, the neighbourhood was known as a something of a ghetto with a high crime rate.

“HoMa,” as some call it now, is slowly evolving past that image, but it’s not completely transformed. Some of its small businesses look a little worn, which happens when you’ve been around for 20 years or more. Still, they’re meeting a fairly high demand. Local fast-food joints like La Pataterie and cozy diner Gerry’s Delicatessen serve comfort classics like hamburgers, poutine and smoked meat sandwiches, and they’re as popular now as they were when they opened decades ago. A place like Bar Davidson, a dive bar known for inexpensive drinks, has been around since the 1930s. Back then, it was a tavern and wouldn’t serve women. Now it refuses no one. Not the student looking for cheap beer; not the leather-covered biker dude; not the scantily clad lady.

“It’s a poor neighbourhood,” says Picard, “but there are all sorts of people here. It’s very heterogeneous and I like seeing all the faces of our population.”

What wasn’t here 11 years ago was a sense of newness, much of which was jump-started in 2005 with the opening of Place Simon-Valois, a revitalization project that cost more than $2 million. Located on the corner of Ontario and Valois Sts., it’s an open-air plaza with shop spaces at the ground level and new condos surrounding it. It was developed to help boost social and commercial activity on Ontario St., and to create a public space with shrubs, trees and a pedestrian path.

It’s noticeably squeaky-clean compared with the rest of Ontario St. There isn’t a hint of retro, none of the signage is faded, and the general feel is more Vespa than Harley. Even Picard, who rather likes the plaza, wonders if this could be a sign of gentrification.

Hochelaga district councillor Laurent Blanchard’s family has been living in HoMa since the 1920s, and he’s never had a job outside of this district. Before going into public service, Blanchard co-owned a local weekly called Les Nouvelles de l’Est. A “Hochelagais” through and through, he points out that condo developments haven’t caused a mass exodus. “The population has increased,” he says.

Indeed, the 2011 census sees 131,483 people living in the Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve borough, up 1.8 per cent since 2006. But Hochelaga — the district referred to colloquially as “Hochelaga-Maisonneuve” — is the borough’s most densely populated district, home to 33,595 people – which is 85 fewer people than in 2006.

Whether or not people are sticking around to see it, the most positive by-product of HoMa’s rejuvenation is a thriving local economy. Arhoma bakery and Le Valois restaurant are doing well, and they have paved the way for newcomers like L’Espace Public, a bar that specializes in micro-brewed beer, and Les Canailles bistro, which focuses on market cuisine.

“You can try anything here because it either doesn’t exist or there’s very little of it,” says HoMa native Julie Brisson, who co-owns Café Atomic, a vintage-decorated coffee shop that often hosts vernissages, and Le 7ième, a repertory video store located at the very back of Café Atomic.

Les Canailles co-owner François Audette agrees. Part of the reason he and partner/chef Jordan Perron chose HoMa was strategic.

“Some of our clients have been living here for 15 years,” Audette says. “They’re happy there’s a new restaurant.”

Meanwhile, in September 2012, former ad-man Mathieu Ménard teamed up with chefs Jean-Philippe Matheussen and Laurence Frenette to launch Le Chasseur resto-bar. The pub serves its locavore fare in a neo-rustic setting. The made-in-Quebec food arrives on wooden boards to invite sharing, and Le Chasseur won’t take groups larger than six people.

“We didn’t want the environment to be like a stereotypical chalet, but we wanted it to be just as cozy,” Ménard says.

The Le Chasseur experiment has been getting a surprising amount of buzz from foodies, bloggers and local media considering it is only 11 weeks old. It even managed an inclusion in this year’s Mixeur guide, a selection of Montreal’s 100 most creative restaurants rounded up by food writers Sylvie Berkowicz and Jean-Philippe Tastet. But the opinion that matters most to Ménard comes from his homegrown clientele.

“With the media attention, more people are coming from outside the neighbourhood to visit us,” he says, “but at the very beginning, 90 per cent of our clients were locals, and they would thank us because they appreciate what we’re doing here.”

In researching this neighbourhood, many business owners would inform me of some of their favourite places. Ménard, for one, led me to Rachel F., a fashion label that designs clothing and accessories with recycled fur.

“We’ve been in this area since 2008,” says co-owner Mathieu Mudie. “We love it here ... the community spirit, the fact that this area is a neighbourhood in renewal. You get the feeling that anything is possible, and there’s no lack of new ideas.”

There’s also a sense that these businesses would rather build a community than compete with one another. L’Espace Public sponsored Les Canailles’s staff party, for example.

“People here are proud of their neighbourhood and want to encourage their local businesses,” explains Pierre Lessard-Blais, co-owner and manager at L’Espace Public, adding that there’s also an “everybody knows your name” vibe to many HoMa startups. “Here, the bartender knows the clients, the clients know each other, and when I go to Café Atomic or Les Canailles or Bistro In Vivo, I always run into people I know.”

Local businesses are also giving back. Most of Lessard’s employees — as well as those at Café Atomic, Les Canailles, Le Chasseur, and the Bistro In Vivo coop on Ste. Catherine St. — are HoMa residents.

Sean James De Coste, a cook at Le Chasseur resto-bar, lives a five-minute walk away. As a resident, the short commute to work is a perk. As a cook, De Coste feels he has hit the jackpot.

“There’s William J. Walter, who has 70 or 80 different kinds of sausages,” he says. “There’s a little Asian shop around the corner from my place, where they have a little bit of everything. If you want eggs, coriander, bean sprouts, tofu, it’s all really affordable.”

He goes on to mention the nearby Super C and Metro grocery stores, and of course, the Maisonneuve Market.

The HoMa factories are mostly gone, but there is no shortage of small local businesses. La Promenade Ontario’s general director, Claude Rhéaume, says commercial vacancy on Ontario St. is at a considerable low of 3 per cent. Meanwhile, at La Promenade Sainte-Catherine Est, president Annie Martel (also one of Bistro In Vivo’s founders) says a TV studio is in talks to set up in her area, which would create 150 permanent jobs.

Both Promenades are organizations that support local businesses. With all this progress, they bodies saw fit to join forces. They’ll be merging in early 2013 to form a Société de développement commercial (SDC) to represent the Hochelaga district.

HoMa hasn’t quite shed its rough-and-tumble reputation, but it also has a small-town feel that appeals to many of its residents.

“The social culture here is really engaged,” says filmmaker Malcolm Sutherland, who has been living in the area for almost nine years. “I know so many people, neighbours, shops, friends, business owners. It feels like there’s a really thriving social network on the street.”

That’s why Sutherland can often be found at Café Atomic, congregating with other artists. He also rents an office space in building along Aird St., near the Maisonneuve Market. It used to be a shoe factory, but these days, the landlord prefers to rent his lofts to artists or multimedia firms.

“It costs $300 for maybe 300 square feet,” Sutherland says. “It’s beautifully maintained. Everything’s included for that price, so it’s really affordable. If I were living in another neighbourhood, I couldn’t have afforded it.”

The area hasn’t lost its working-class candour, which is part of the charm. It’s familiar, it’s happening, and you no longer have to leave the ’hood to find something fun to do.

“There are new possibilities that weren’t there before,” Brisson concludes. “There are people who’ve always lived here, but you’d never see them. Now, they’re starting to emerge.”

A bit like HoMa.

Notable attractions:

Marché Maisonneuve, 4445 Ontario St. E., corner of William David and Ontario Sts. Visit: http://bit.ly/WtHCQ3

The Olympic Stadium, 4141 Pierre de Coubertin Ave.

The Biodome, 4777 Pierre-de Coubertin Ave.

Sidewalk sales: Usually during the first weekend of June and the last weekend of August, on Ontario and Ste. Catherine Sts.

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